feralminded wrote:If it makes you feel any better you were the 9th best performer even though you ranked 14th in DPS. I have the same problem, even though I am usually top 5 in overall performance (by rank), I am rarely even in the top half of the DPS chart. We're not in a good place right now on many fights (except Tortos ... yey!).

o_O What's the difference between best overall performance and total dmg done? (Sorry I'm still really confused by logs, hence asking the community for advice D:)

Yriss wrote:i don't see major errors in your last log, just one, a rake after your SR pre-pull faded, and before you refreshed it. Without this mistake, your SR should be ok (uptime and refresh with enough combo point), rake is ok too, rip a bit low but you switched on crimson fogs, not so easy to keep rip upIf you remove dks and warlocks (2 broken classes, specially warlocks), your not so low in your raid ^^Check your reforge, i'm sure you could improve it with your rune

(grrr don't think tortos is always a good fight for feral ... in our raid we don't aoe bats full kitting and "passive" *cough dks* aoe)

Thank you for trawling through that log, Yriss! Man it feels like I'm learning this spec all over again after 5 years :X I'm still getting used to abusing that RoO proc at the moment, and yeah the add switching is terribly annoying. I think I'll try pooling energy then refresh Rip on Durumu before leaping on activated Fogs next time around.

I know a number of our DPSers do pad via that method, but I'm ghastly terrified that I'll pull bats off the kiter as some of our other padding DPSers have done before. Any tips on how to avoid becoming bat feed?

Thrash is not a huge bleed. The reason it does so much damage is that it ticking for 16 seconds on 30 bats adds up. As the damage is spread over time you aren't going to pull threat unless:1. You hit the fresh set of bats coming down before the tank gets them. Or2. Your kiting tank dies. Then they will come for your face.

Even a 0 Vengance tank is going to keep threat over a single Thrash. If your kiter is a Monk or a DK you won't ever pull off them after the first Blood Boil/Keg Smash.

I wouldn't ever waste a Berserk/Swipe on bats unless you are ordered to kill a set. Sometimes our MT on Tortos will get the pack by accident and the kiting tank can't get them off. What others in your raid are likely doing to pull threat is either, blowing a cooldown and spamming direct damage aoe (our Rogues keep getting yelled at for FoK'ing), or #1.

bearpelt wrote:o_O What's the difference between best overall performance and total dmg done? (Sorry I'm still really confused by logs, hence asking the community for advice D:)

I just ordered your DPS based on their rank percentage. While you were 14th on overall damage you came in 9th overall for ranking %. Since this is about the closest we get to Patchwerk (not a lot of room for cheese) it's safe (ish) to say despite coming in 14th overall on the meters you were actually the 9th "best" dpser in your raid, ignoring all other factors (besides gear). It's a very loose assertion, probably loose enough to rankle the noses of the stricter statisticians here, but it's also a fairly safe one. It's doesn't mean anything, one pull on one fight, but I was simply trying to make you feel a bit better about your numbers.

Take my logs with a grain of salt. A lot of luck goes into getting numbers like that. The fact that I was able to use 3 of the 6 total procs I got made a huge difference. Also don't get so focused on the bats you lose sight of Tortos. He is SOOOOO much more important than your numbers. Keep the bleeds up on him and use Thrash only when you have time/energy. Do not go running after the bats cause you have a proc. Good luck next week.

Personally I *highly* recommend Ovale + Leafkiller's script (preferably with a weak aura to track important buffs such as RoR as well).

From what I can see, you're not taking advantage of Rip/Rake snapshotting. In fact on most fights my average ticks are ~25-33% higher than yours or so but my mangles are roughly the same. Compare my Council kill to yours (this was our first kill of them, but it should still compare):

In case you don't know, bleeds (or any DoT really) "snapshot" their damage upon application meaning they take the attack power, mastery, crit and any damage multipliers (savage roar, etc) and keep those numbers for the duration of the bleed. This means its often advantageous to overwrite a weaker bleed with a stronger one (*especially* in the case of Rake, I think you only need the new one to be 12% stronger than the old one for overwriting to be worth it).

Using Ovale + Leafkillers will get you there with the least time invested (since it tells you flat out what to do). If after you're comfortable with the rotation, many people will switch away from it and judge what to do themselves. For now though, this should get you on the right track.

I had a look at your Dark Animus kill and did some compares to my kills for the last 2 weeks. The reason I used this kill is it has the highest uptime on the boss, and likely has the least variation for strats. Most of the other kills you listed will vary widely based on your guilds strat and execution. I am using my kill from 2 weeks ago because this last weeks I had a stupid amazing lucky run. That run was also while I had a 543 staff, 517 bracers, 522 tier chest, and my Helm was still 535.

Here are some things I observed:1. The number times you cast Rake is REALLY high. Even though my kill lasted 16 seconds longer then yours you almost doubled the number of Rakes I cast. (You 74, Me 44). I also had a 3% higher uptime. Are you spamming Rake during your Rune procs?2. The number of Rip extending abilities (Mangle/Shred) is noticeably lower then mine. You had 38 combined, I had 67.3. Even though we had almost the exact same Rip uptime in seconds (You 283s, Me 285s) you cast Rip 5 more times then I did (You 20, Me 15). When mathed out it looks like you were getting an average of 7 ticks per application of Rip. I was about 9.6 ticks per application. This tells me 2 things. 1. You are refreshing Rip to often and 2. You are not extending your Rip enough.4. Your FB usage was much lower than mine. You 5, Me 16.5. Your Thrash uptime is really low. You didn't even cast it until about half way through the fight.6. Our SR uptime was also almost exact (Yours 344s, Mine 345) but cast mine 3 times fewer then you (You 15, Me 12).7. SotF Energy return (You 680, Me 728).

Of note I did die (my fault) after one of my 4 matter swaps. I was dumb and ran into one of the massive's smash.

So I collected all of the above info because it shows a pattern. We seem to be using different move priorities which are giving different returns. I think one of your biggest hurdles will be knowing when to refresh one of your bleeds, and when to let it go. What the above info is showing is that because you have used so many extra finishers on SR and Rip you end up having less resources to use FB. With your gear level you should have no problem getting in several more FB's outside of Berserk and BitW. Now I know that with Rune procs it will cause us to refresh bleeds that in the past we would not have refreshed. However its super important that you know if the bleed you are about to override is worth doing so. Shmoo's suggestions of getting both Ovale, and something that will give you information how much more powerful a bleed would be if you overwrote it. I know Drood Focus has this as part of their bleed tracker, and there are some Weak Auras in the UI resources forums on this board (they should be near the top). Something that will help a bunch is if you have some time of aura you can see when your Rune, and other trinket proc. It will give you an idea why bleed ratios end up being different at different times.

One more thing. If you are finding that you have hit 5 combo points and don't need to refresh SR or Rip in the next bit it's really a good idea to spend the points even if you might lose a little Rip uptime. Having SotF makes it a waste to keep hitting combo point building moves if you already have 5. This is a change from Cata gameplay which we prized Rip uptime over combo points.

Key thing to remember is don't get discouraged. Keep practicing your rotation with Ovale and try to understand why it will be suggesting the next move. Once you figure that out you can start making the decisions on your own that make the most sense for your situation. Good luck in the next few weeks, and if you have follow ups for Animus this week post it up.

1: In that gear, on most of those fights, Rip should be your #1 damage, but not only is it not your #1, sometimes it's not even your #2. Your up time is abysmal. 40%? I just cant understand that. 2: Savage roar up time is not optimal. On some fights 85-90% is fine because there is downtime, and depending on your strat's there might be times when you're not attacking anything.3: Casting Rake way too much, your skill priority is off.4: You're not using Thrash effectively on fights like Council, Megera, and Horridon.5: You're not using Symbiosis. On fights with any target swap you should be using Soul Swap to pad.

You have a lot of room for improvement. I didnt read everything Timber posted but I have no doubt that his advice is on point.

Qualiti wrote:1: In that gear, on most of those fights, Rip should be your #1 damage, but not only is it not your #1

This isn't true. Unless there is a big buff and trinket procs line up Rake is almost always my highest damage every fight.

I was slightly wrong Rake is my #1 on about half of my fights. While Rip is #1 on the other half, and Thrash is #1 on Tortos and close to #1 on Council. Regardless the point still stands. 40% rip up time on several fights is unacceptable.

ShmooDude: I am currently using NeedToKnow, keeping track of Rip, Rake, FFF, Thrash and RoO. I have a rough understanding of the snapshoting DoTs and try to refresh a Rip before RoO's proc drops off, but that's about it. I will get Ovale + Leafkillers as you suggested to help out because I feel overwhelmed atm.

----------------------------------

Tinderhoof:Much kitty love to you.

1. Yes, I am spamming Rake for Rune procs.2. Will work on getting those filler skills up.3. I generally clip Rip to refresh when the current one on target is under 8s. Otherwise it's usually a FB ._.4. Okay. I generally only use FB for BitW and if I'm CP-capped and with too much energy. Should I use it a lot more? 5. Roger. Generally one should Thrash when OoC procs, right?

Think you nailed my problem pretty spot on. I'm having a tremendously difficult time keeping track of which DoTs have been snapshot to what on top of minding raid mechanics and maintaining a basic (albeit poor) DPS standard. Heck I don't have anything to keep track of snapshots at all.

I was under the impression that when RoO procs, USE ALL DOTS! so went nuts on Rake, forsaking Rip-extending abilities when it was up. What you say makes sense and it makes me wonder how in the world folks manage to rank without the use of Ovale/ DroodFocus these days. This weekend I will try out Ovale, perhaps DroodFocus.

----------------------------------

Qualiti:I see what you mean. I'm not too sure why Rip's got such low uptime on Megara either. Will work on that. Noted to make sure SI has high uptime. I'm spamming Rake every time RoO procs (refreshing Rip too), but as Tinderhoof mentioned, that may not be optimal. Will have to check out Ovale. Points taken on Soul Swap and Thrash!

1. Yes, I am spamming Rake for Rune procs.Don't do this. For the most part unless the bleed is going to be better spamming Rake isn't helping you much.2. Will work on getting those filler skills up. 3. I generally clip Rip to refresh when the current one on target is under 8s. Otherwise it's usually a FB ._. Do not do this. Only refresh Rip if you see the ratio is going to be higher then 20% (for beginners). With your gear at 8s if SR won't fall off FB. Its ok if you lose a little Rip uptime.4. Okay. I generally only use FB for BitW and if I'm CP-capped and with too much energy. Should I use it a lot more? Yes. If you have 8s or more on both SR and Rip and you have 5 combos FB (or better follow Ovale)5. Roger. Generally one should Thrash when OoC procs, right? There will be times that its ok to Thrash with out OOC. Like if you have 5 combos and need to burn energy.Think you nailed my problem pretty spot on. I'm having a tremendously difficult time keeping track of which DoTs have been snapshot to what on top of minding raid mechanics and maintaining a basic (albeit poor) DPS standard. Heck I don't have anything to keep track of snapshots at all.

I was under the impression that when RoO procs, USE ALL DOTS! so went nuts on Rake, forsaking Rip-extending abilities when it was up. What you say makes sense and it makes me wonder how in the world folks manage to rank without the use of Ovale/ DroodFocus these days. This weekend I will try out Ovale, perhaps DroodFocus.

You need to get either DroodFocus or something that shows you ratios. If you dont' have it you are just hurting yourself. Good luck!EDIT: Fixed my answer to #1

You're using 2 x Glinting gems, yet you're way over hit cap @ 2980 even after reforging 1732 of it away. You could use 2 Shifting gems (a little extra stamina never hurts) and still get your socket bonuses. The remaining excess hit can be better reforged into a greater proportion of secondary stats. You're also slightly under the expertise cap (could also reforge some of that hit into expertise?) but that's not a huge deal.

You're reforging spread is all over the place with mastery=6901, haste=6815, crit=6837. If you aren't already I would highly suggest you dl and use Catus; there's a sticky on the first page. I'm sure if you use it you will get a much better reforge. That, along with what everyone else has said in this thread, should get you the results you're looking for.

CrazyCatLady wrote:I'm not good at analyzing WoL but I did notice on your armory:

You're using 2 x Glinting gems, yet you're way over hit cap @ 2980 even after reforging 1732 of it away. You could use 2 Shifting gems (a little extra stamina never hurts) and still get your socket bonuses. The remaining excess hit can be better reforged into a greater proportion of secondary stats. You're also slightly under the expertise cap (could also reforge some of that hit into expertise?) but that's not a huge deal.

You're reforging spread is all over the place with mastery=6901, haste=6815, crit=6837. If you aren't already I would highly suggest you dl and use Catus; there's a sticky on the first page. I'm sure if you use it you will get a much better reforge. That, along with what everyone else has said in this thread, should get you the results you're looking for.

Good luck and purrs to you! >^.^<

The reforging is fine. He is taking advantage of RoR which you want to be as close to 1:1:1 as possible while mastery is the highest. You could drop the glinting for a bit of stamina but whatever (the biggest problem with that is if/when you upgrade something to drop hit that you remember to gem back - not a big deal either way, imo).

A couple other things with some of the logs. Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement. Tinder did a good job going over most of the points you need to know about. The sad reality is a lot of the difficulty with doing well for DoT classes is knowing when to override and when not to override your DoTs. This can be a tricky thing and very difficult without addons or a lot of memorizing how hard things hit with many different variables in play. I use a weakauras thing to tell me the relative strength of my DoTs, some use Ovale so they don't need to worry about the decision, and others use other random addons that I'm not even sure (Droodfocus? I dunno).

A side note: some of those fights you are set up to fail. You will not do well on Magaera without AoEing the adds in 25 man. Some of your raid also adds scumbag dps to the Frozen head. Oh well. In my 10 man last night I did 260k-ish without touching the worms, but that's only possible because we had a great kill time and I was able to refresh/soul swap plenty of hard hitting bleeds between heads. So you have room for improvement, which you would be well to follow most of Tinder's advice, but remember some fights just don't play to a feral's strength depending on your role in the raid so don't get down when a warlock does 5 googleplex DPS on an AoE intensive fight and you're miles behind.

Shortly after my last post I went home from work, got Ovale and tried to figure it out for about 45 minutes before raid started. It was... very daunting to say the least and I still don't know what some buttons mean. Tried it in raid today and it might have hampered my DPS on some fights while helping on others, but I can definitely learn a lot from here on.

CrazyCatLady: As Dysheki mentioned, I'm reforging the stats to cater to the troublesome RoR trinket *shakes fist at it*. As for the obscene amount of hit, I'm afraid I can't reforge any more out of it than I have already. It's a problem I never thought would happen D:

------------------

Tinderhoof:

These are the logs from tonight. At several points of the raid I got confused/ had to divert my attention to other things so the results are somewhat... odd for this first night of testing >.>; I can see the sense in what Ovale recommends most of the time but it will take some getting use to.

*Note: For Megara, my Rip uptime went down to 30% or so. Yikes. I suspect this is because the heads go down so quickly that sometimes Ovale omits recommending Rip and opts to suggest Ferocious Bite instead..? Also couldn't really get Soul Swap working. On the bright side I managed to get some AOE off adds so the numbers don't look so tragic as before..?

Dark AnimusWorse than before, but this is due to me being conflicted by what Ovale and force of habit tell me.

Side note: Do you happen to have any links to guides on 'ratios' you talked about in point 3?

------------------

Qualiti:

Well, I'm open to DoC after I fix my basic stuff. If I can't do competitive DPS with the passive agi HotW gives, best fix that before going on to something more complicated.

------------------

Dysheki:

Yep, trying Ovale right now though it doesn't seem to show me the strength of bleeds... Should probably make the switch to Weakauras soon. A number of the raiders in my guild pad quite a bit on irrelevant targets. This doesn't usualy bother me but my raid leader likes to harp on Overall DPS to measure the worth of his raiders. Gets pretty meh.

It's picky. But I still get it to work most of the time. You need to use it as soon as the head is available for targeting to have much of a chance. (i.e. if you're clicking the head and then clicking the ability on your bars you're going to be too late, it should be keybound)

bearpelt wrote:Qualiti:

Well, I'm open to DoC after I fix my basic stuff. If I can't do competitive DPS with the passive agi HotW gives, best fix that before going on to something more complicated.

Absolutely. Do not think about DoC at this point.

bearpelt wrote:Yep, trying Ovale right now though it doesn't seem to show me the strength of bleeds... Should probably make the switch to Weakauras soon.

I'm not sure exactly how Ovale works, but I'm guessing you shouldn't just go with exactly what it tells you all the time. For a single-target dps rotation, sure it could work wonders, but I'm guessing on a fight like Magaera with many target switches and the possibility of soul swap it's not going to be perfect. I think Ovale would best be used to help you get into better habits (i.e. not rake spamming). Probably take some time with it, practice some stuff, see what it's recommending and think of why, then take that information and put it into play. Again, I don't know how Ovale works so maybe someone else can chime in on how best to use it.

But reading over the strength of bleeds doesn't mean much if you aren't really sure what to do with them.

bearpelt wrote:A number of the raiders in my guild pad quite a bit on irrelevant targets. This doesn't usualy bother me but my raid leader likes to harp on Overall DPS to measure the worth of his raiders. Gets pretty meh.

I wouldn't straight tell your raid leader to shove it, but . . . well, I probably would . . . but you shouldn't. Overall DPS meters are not 100% accurate of how well a raider is performing and any good raider should know this. In 10 man it's even more evident when people are padding and we're not meeting specific requirements for bosses (especially when bosses are not 'farm'). We had a raider who would pad meters constantly and would only not pad meters if we had to tell him not to. He doesn't raid with us anymore. Obviously farm content is a little different, but any good raid leader should value objectives over scumbag dps.

If you're around later I can smack the dummy a bit with you and give you a few pointers on DPS Padding. I don't do 25m so it's not completely relevant but there are ways to boost your overall numbers on a good majority of the fights in ToT.

I have lurked here for a while, but first post. This may come off as a little harsh, but I have to disagree with some of the other posters who write it off to meter padding or whatever. Meter padding, DoC, gaming Soul Swap, etc. can get you a little higher ranked, but that simply isn't the case here. Looking at Epeen Bot Rexzis falls below 50% on every single fight it shows, and he is as low as the single digits on some.

Now based on Catus, while your ILV is decent, there is a large difference in DPS a lot of which I chalk up to trinkets. Unfortunately, this expansion gear is huge, skill still matters, but gear makes a big difference especially trinkets, and you don't have good ones for your gear level (getting Renataki's or Bad Juju are both worth 15k+ for you right now, not to mention dumping excess hit).

bearpelt wrote:These are the logs from tonight. At several points of the raid I got confused/ had to divert my attention to other things so the results are somewhat... odd for this first night of testing >.>; I can see the sense in what Ovale recommends most of the time but it will take some getting use to.

Looking over these logs, I have to disagree with Dysheki, there is a difference between not padding meters and doing what amounts to poor DPS for you gear level, unfortunately this is far more of the later. To be blunt, your Raid Leader is right, Epeen Bot shows where you rank relatively. Ferals can be very very competitive on most of the fights in Heroic ToT, however, as I am sure you realize the skill cap is a lot higher than most other DPS.

I also run with HotW for raid utility, because I find DoC obnoxious, and with RoR and Renataki's I personally find that it really cuts down on the opportunities to make good use of DoC (both trinkets effectively double your bleeds), so I wouldn't worry about that. So considering our specs are the same, our logs should be pretty comparable, however my gear is a little better (but you have a better weapon), I am going to go back 3 weeks to a point where my gear was closer to where your's is now.

Jin'rokh - 212k vs 290k Your kill was 35 seconds faster, your DPS was 78k lower. For some reason you did a ton of Wrath damage, unless you can't melee the boss, Wrath hasn't been the correct option since September or October, whenever they nerfed the co-efficient. You can use HotW to Tranq and Rejuv the raid if needed, you can use it to AoE with Hurricane, and you can use it to tank if shit hits the fan, you can not use to to DPS the boss with Wrath for 45 seconds.Rake - My average tick is 35% higher than yours, and crits are 100% higher, Rip 88/156 vs 125/259, melee hits 83 vs 160 (some of that is due to you spamming Wrath), you used Shred 22 times, I used Mangle 44 times, you got 3 FB's I got 6.

So looking at all of that, my first question is did you stand in the puddle, but considering the difference in our average melee hit is only 400, it is clear that you did, so then you have to ask why my DPS was almost 2x yours when you had higher up time on Lust. What is looks like is just a really poor job of managing the fight mechanics. On Jin'rokh the key is to game the puddle, so you DPS him on the pull, get SR, FF, Rake up, build CP's, and then as soon as the first throw happens, you run to the puddle and drop Rip, Refresh Rake and put up Thrash, then refresh them if you get trinket procs, and refresh them before leaving the puddle. You can also avoid 1 ionization by Symbiosis'ing a Paladin. The biggest thing on this fight is to keep the largest bleeds rolling you possibly can, and use the puddles to do so, which means you need a clean and easy way to see their relative strengths.

Megaera - 179k vs 228k Again your Rip and Rake ticks are off by 20% or so, which means you are doing a poor job managing them, average melee hit is only 2% different. The main thing I see here is that you aren't gaming Tiger's Fury and the 4 piece bonus, you have a 58% crit rate on Swipe, I had a 65% and had almost double the hits. You need to save Tiger's Fury and pool energy when adds are about to spawn, the Thrash, TF, Swipe, Swipe, Swipe (if needed), while keeping Rip and Rake running.

The other fights all have variations in strategy that make them difficult to compare side by side, and I don't have time at the moment to run through them, but the major things I notice:-Your management of your bleeds needs work-You are still using Shred, swap to Mangle, just take Shred off your bar for now, due to set bonuses and other factors you are better off using Mangle -Need more Thrash uptime, yes even on single targets-HOTW and Wrath spamming is never the right answer, I have a 535 Caster Staff and I only use it for Tranq and Hurricane-You aren't making the best use of fight mechanics, every fight has different factors that you have to take advantage of to maximize your DPS. The difference between good DPS and great DPS is taking advantage of these. That being said, you need to work on basic class mechanics with the T15 trinkets, because they completely change how we have to play.

Personally I don't care for any of the prepackaged mods, but I also played a rogue for many years before swapping to a druid this expansion, so the idea of combo points and timers wasn't new to me. What I use is WeakAuras (ClassTimers also works, but I prefer to be able to control the exact position) for both the bars and for relative strengths (placed at the end of each bar), using the scripts in the UI forum here. I recommend having a bar for SR, Rip, Rake, Thrash, FF, and Predatory together, and then different bars elsewhere that are highly visable for trinket procs. The rationale behind this is that you control one group, the other is RNG and you need to react (WeakAuras can also play a sound when they proc, which is helpful).

The best thing you can do right now is go spend 30 mins beating on a target dummy and see how high you can get your average Rip and Rake ticks.

Nessala wrote:Looking over these logs, I have to disagree with Dysheki, there is a difference between not padding meters and doing what amounts to poor DPS for you gear level, unfortunately this is far more of the later. To be blunt, your Raid Leader is right, Epeen Bot shows where you rank relatively. Ferals can be very very competitive on most of the fights in Heroic ToT, however, as I am sure you realize the skill cap is a lot higher than most other DPS.

No, epeen bot is not everything. I would rank ~50-60th percentile for feral parses on 10 man Tsulong. By your account this makes me bad. I'm not. That's because I had to help kill unstable shas and this plays to our weakness (constant travel and target swapping on adds that need to die quick). One week I got to do AoE duty for the day phase and I parsed 95th percentile. It had EVERYTHING to do with my role and NOTHING to do with my ability.

Again, I conceded that he/she has a lot of room for improvement. My point: don't get too down because the gap isn't as wide as it looks (it's extremely daunting when you see those warlocks doing nearly twice your damage when you will never reach that number if you're not specifically on AoE duty - and don't get me started on frozen head damage because I would sit anyone immediately trying to pad like that in my raid unless we're not wiping because it's farm). Make sure you take to heart the suggestions here and work at it. That's the only thing that is going to help is knowledge and practice.

I understand the 'tough love' philosophy, but this is a game and I try to be nice to people more often than not. (except for idiots on the D&R forums) You can give advice however you want, that's fine, but I'm standing by most of what I said.

Scumbag DPS - Using abilities to attain you higher total damage by applying them on non critical targets.

Raidbots frustrates the hell out of me. It can be a good tool in some aspects. However most of it's usage is to exhibit how well each class can scumbag and how much that scumbagging stacks up against other classes. No one gets a high rank on a boss that is on farm for a good chunk of the community unless you scumbag and you get lucky with procs (both frequency and timing). Using Raidbots to prove someone is doing something right or wrong is often misleading and usually inaccurate. It's called 'Epeen' for a reason.

Yes Rexzis has a lot of mechanical issues to work through. However he came here looking for help which is always the first step in learning and I prefer to keep this place positive in the feedback. That was why when I gave feedback it was purely mechanical. Comparing damage of specific abilities when the two sources are not equal or not known is just stupid. Looking at your armory the only things I have seen you upgrade since the 11th was your belt and your cloak (I don't know if you had it for the raid or not).

-Your management of your bleeds needs work

Of this they are very aware.

-You are still using Shred, swap to Mangle, just take Shred off your bar for now, due to set bonuses and other factors you are better off using Mangle

Mangle is better in a lot of cases, but not all of them. Saying to take it off the bars isn't the right answer either. You should use Mangle in most situations that are not Berserk, or if your energy is above 80% (not exact figure, it's there as a nice beginner value).

-HOTW and Wrath spamming is never the right answer, I have a 535 Caster Staff and I only use it for Tranq and Hurricane

I agree. Wrath may look pretty like when it crit for 800k in the puddle. However your normal rotation will serve you better in any situation you can reach the boss in melee range.

The harshness of the feedback is not exactly helpful. They already know they are underperforming of they wouldn't be asking for help. Telling them:

To be blunt, your Raid Leader is right, Epeen Bot shows where you rank relatively.

is not only unhelpful but misleading. After they learn better how to do the rotation they can start working on the scumbagging it takes to move up on Raidbots.

Hi guys, I'm at work right now so can't respond in full. I've read the replies and have taken note of various points. Looks like I'll be relearning a lot over this weekend, perhaps posting up LFR logs for analysis. A few things:

1) Why is Mangle better than Shred right now? I must have missed out on something major as I've never seen it mentioned as being better unless we can't get to the back of a boss.EDIT: Nevermind. I just found the thread.

2) Somehow I managed to scrap by 2 expansions with this standard of play and it is clearly -not- sufficient at this level of progression I'm in any longer nor acceptable so I wish to fix it. Compared to the levels of harshness/ snarkiness I've been getting in guild/ raid comments, this is very tame.

3) Painfully noted on the Wrath spam issue. ><

4) I do agree that only once one masters the foundations of their DPS spec, then the abuse of metre-padding may begin.

Thank you for putting up with my lack of skill thus far. It's been an eye opener this couple of days.